And some of them did give up and renounce their Catholic Faith
And so, on this Good Friday, I would like to look at this question; is there suffering that is worst than Christ’s suffering?
Some people have been sick/infirmed/paralyzed for decades, and may be asking the same question or are hearing the demonic word “Christ didn’t suffer as much as you” whispered into your soul
St. Thomas Aquinas actually takes this question up in his Great Work of Catholicism.
“It would seem that the pain of Christ's Passion was not greater than all other pains. For the sufferer's pain is increased by the sharpness and the duration of the suffering. But some of the martyrs endured sharper and more prolonged pains than Christ, as is seen in St. Lawrence, who was roasted upon a gridiron…Therefore it seems that the pain of the suffering Christ was not the greatest.
St. Thomas later responds to this objection: “This argument follows from only one of the considerations, from the bodily injury, which is the cause of sensitive pain; but the torment of the suffering Christ is much more intensified from other causes."
And what are those other causes?
1) The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race
2) He embraced the amount of pain proportionate to the magnitude of the fruit which His suffering produced
And so,
1) Christ’s suffering and death on the Cross is the most painful suffering, and my sins contributed and continue to contribute to that most horrible suffering ever
2) But also, we rejoice in the fruit which his suffering produced, which we will once again begin celebrating tomorrow evening at sundown.